On which I write about the books I read, science, science fiction, fantasy, and anything else that I want to. Currently trying to read and comment upon every novel that has won the Hugo and International Fantasy awards.

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Friday, April 13, 2012

Follow Friday - Fifty-Six Men Signed the Declaration of Independence

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and two Follow Friday Features Bloggers each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.

Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.

Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".

If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.

If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!

If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: What is one book that you would be nervous to see a movie adaption of because you think the movie could never live up to the book?

My answer will probably surprise nobody who has read this blog before: Any book by Samuel R. Delany. I love Delany's books and while he's not my favorite science fiction author, he is definitely on the short list. But even though he wrote his books in the 1960s and 1970s, they are still so odd, outlandish, and innovative that adapting his ideas to film would probably require hammering down the edges so much that the final product would be bland. Not only that, so much of what makes Delany's books so good is his use of language that the core of most of his books would be torn out in the shift from the page to the screen. I would fear that most film makers would probably wind up excising all of the elements that make Delany so great, and the end result would be bland mediocrity.

@veela-valoom: I think for many styles of science fiction, you are right. Even when an author constrains himself to writing within the confines of known technology, you can end up with books that are unfilmable like Robert L. Forward's Dragon's Egg.

@Kate: That's one of the things that I think would make Delany's book so hard to turn into films - so much of what makes his books so amazing is his use of language to tell the story, and of course, all of that would be lost on the screen.

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